The invention relates to the field of reproduction technology, and concerns a method and an apparatus for driving diode-pumped solid-state lasers. Such solid-state lasers have a tendency to what are known as "relaxation oscillations," which are dependent on the resonator geometry and the pumping level. When the resonator is excited, oscillations arise in the laser output, which decay after a more or less long time. Although the amplitudes of these oscillations often lie only in the range of a few percent of the laser output, solid-state lasers cannot be unproblematically used in the area of reproduction technology in exposers (recorders) for exposing images and color separations, because they produce stripe-like or wood-grain-like impermissible image disturbances in the color separations. In order to produce a good reproduction quality, oscillation amplitudes of the solid-state laser in the value range 0.1 to 0.2% are just permissible.
In practice, it is thus attempted to avoid exciting the resonator of the solid-state laser, and a particular emphasisis given to freeing the operating current of the laser diode from spikes of the switched-mode power supplies. Nonetheless, sporadically occurring oscillations cannot be entirely avoided.